Sandra: Hi, Mamie.
Mamie: Hi.
Sandra: Take off those glasses; show us those beautiful eyes.
Mamie: (Takes off glasses) They're great (the glasses); they have little
eyelashes on the side.
Sandra: I am inspired by you. Remember that Mamie is one of the three
"M"s: Monroe, Mansfield, and Mamie. And you were there. How does it feel
today, knowing that you blazed a path for all of today's sex symbols?
Mamie: You are really away of that? I didn't think anyone realized that.
That if it wasn't for the three of us and other blondes, too, we really
pioneered the whole glamour bit. The entire sexuality in movies, and we had
a hell of a time doing it.
Sandra: No kidding.
Mamie: Yeah. I had a very serious time because I was considered the bad
girl of the '50s. I did "Untamed Youth" and "High School Confidential," and
never got the legions of decency from Cardinal Spellman.
Sandra: Yeah, I wanted to talk to you about that. Why were you singled out
by Spellman and his lockjaw group?
Mamie: I was on a list, I know I was on a list. They didn't use me for
television and.. I don't really have an answer. (Laughs) I was ahead of my
time. I was even ahead of the '90s.
Sandra: That's incredible. Now, they are still blacking out breasts in
these movies. What do you think of that?
Mamie: It's so silly. In my day, we had the Hayes office. And they were
always on set, standing over my shoulder looking to see if I had any
cleavage. Well, I have always been well endowed. I have always had big
breasts ever since I was a little girl. And it's hard to hide because it
starts way up high. Just like yours (Sandra). Yours start way up high.
Sandra: Oh yes (laughs), I have had that problem from the get go, ever
since puberty (laughs). They just spill out of my shirt.
Mamie: But you have cute ones.
Sandra: Thank you. Wow, I am going to save this piece of tape. Mamie Van
Doren telling me that I have cute breasts. I am blown away. My career has
reached its peak. Thank you, Mamie, that's beautiful.
Mamie: But I did have the Hayes office coming and looking in. And it was
very hard, because I would be trying to do a scene and they would be trying
to cover me.
Sandra: You mean they were really on the set? Who were these people? Like
up-tight broads?
Mamie: They were men. Mostly men.
Sandra: Oh, I love that. "Here Mamie, let me help you cover your breasts"
(laughs).
Mamie: I tell you it was something.
Sandra: I bet it was!
Mamie: And then I did "Garden of Eden" and I was playing Eve. And Adam got
to show his navel. But they put a fern over my navel, and long hair draped
over my breasts.
Sandra: As long as they didn't have hair growing out of your breasts,
that's probably a good thing (laughs).
Mamie: Yeah (laughs).
Sandra: So sexualty was very tightly controlled in the '50s.
Mamie: Oh! really. And I was so glad when the '60s came along because it
was the sexual revolution. And everybody burned their bra, and just became
themselves, you know.
Sandra: So there was repression in the '50s even though you were here in
Hollywood in what could have been the most cutting-edge thing ever?
Mamie: I was a feminst. I never was a professional wife. I never married
men for money. I really worked hard, and that was just the way it was.
Sandra: And you always kept your strength. Just look how many doors you
opened for women.
Mamie: I know that I have done a lot of things that you just couldn't
believe I had done. If you had read my book..
Sandra: I did read your book. Tell me a little about that.
Mamie: Well, it's just me. I got married in my teens to a 19-year-old
baseball player. I just did things people said were not right. I didn't go
to bed with the right producers.
Sandra: Well, I hope you didn't go to bed with the wrong producers.
Mamie: I did (laughs). In fact, I didn't even sleep with producers (laughs).
Sandra: So you slept with people who you found attractive. Which at that
time was very cutting edge. Today or in any time. In this town anyway.
Mamie: Yeah. If I met someone I would just go. In fact I carried my own
condoms, which at the time was unheard of.
Sandra: Really? Right on!
PART TWO
Sandra: Mamie, we were speaking earlier about how some of the earlier sex
symbols ended up in tragedy. Why do you think you survived? What gave you
that cut above the rest?
Mamie: Well, I was born in the Midwest, in South Dakota. Which is just
about the coldest state in the union. And you just want to be "from" South
Dakota. And it was very hard for me. I was not born into a rich family. It
was very hard. And I think that when you are very young, when you realize
that you can survive at a very young age, you can survive anywhere. I used
to watch Marilyn declining all the time. And I wished I could just talk to
her, and tell her you're doing it the wrong way. I just watched her go
exactly the way she went. And Jayne (Mansfield) was unpredictable. I just
said, "I don't want that to happen to me." My incentive was to show people
that I could survive. And the more people put me down, the stronger I got.
I just wasn't going to go down.
Sandra: That's incredible.
Mamie: I did a movie called "Three Nuts and a Bolt." in the mid '60s with
Tommy Nunane. And I did a nude bare-back scene and it ended up in Playboy
magazine. Actually Jayne did it first.
Sandra: So you just managed to keep it in perspective.
Mamie: Yeah. If women posed in the nude you were considered bad. You were
not given the dramatic roles. You had to be plain Jane with no makeup. Or
just ugly.
Sandra: Who said it? They want the girl next door.
Mamie: Exactly. It seems that when a girl is getting an Academy Award,
it's for doing something bad.
Sandra: But you know, people want to keep you in their mind. They look up
to you. Much more than the girl who did not take the chance.
Mamie: Thank you. I have a film out there that my husband and I wrote. And
it's being considered by studios. It's about being a glamorous woman living
in the '60s. And I hope someone picks it up.
Sandra: I bet someone will. I'm saying right now, do not miss a chance to
work with this lady.
Mamie: I play my mother in this one.
Sandra: Oh, well, God bless you, good for you. Anyone would be blessed to
have you as a mother. Do you have children?
Mamie: Yes, I have a son who's 40.
Sandra: Wow! you did it young.
Mamie: Yes, I did it very young.
Sandra: I can't thank you enough for coming to my show. It is a thrill to
meet you. You are a beautiful person on the inside, and the outside goes
without saying. But everything radiates from within.
Mamie: And you are even more glamorous in person.
Sandra: That's true. Even more than I am on the street. I am a mess on the
street; I can't keep it together. I'm taking a cue from Mamie Van Doren.
Keep it together. Mamie, thank you for coming. What a thrill.
Mamie: Thank you.
Sandra: Maybe one day we will do something theatrical together. Not that
this wasn't (both laugh).